Republican Richard Mourdock, candidate for Indiana's U.S. Senate seat, participates in a debate with Democrat Joe Donnelly and Libertarian Andrew Horning in a debate in New Albany, Ind., Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012. Mourdock said Tuesday when a woman is impregnated during a rape, "it's something God intended." He was asked during the final minutes of the debate whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

TheDC Morning: Note to GOP Senate candidates — Stop talking

1.)Note to GOP Senate candidates: Stop talking— If Republican Senate candidates want to win their races, they may be best advised to avoid any and all spontaneous verbal communication for the next two weeks. TheDC’s Alexis Levinson reports on the latest verbal gaffe on the subject of rape from a GOP Senate candidate:

“Indiana Senate hopeful Richard Mourdock is drawing flack for suggesting that God intends for pregnancies to result from rape. The comment came during Tuesday’s debate between Mourdock and his Democratic opponent, Rep. Joe Donnelly. ‘I believe that life begins at conception,’ Mourdock said. ‘The only exception I have … is in that case of the life of the mother. I just, I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is a gift from God, and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.'”

Of course, many GOP Senate candidates speak quite well and fluidly, like Ted Cruz. But if the GOP wants to be on the safe side, given the recent track record, they should probably tell their candidates to hush — at least on the topic of rape.

2.) What? Something’s wrong in Egypt?— Mitt Romney surrogate Norm Coleman, the former Minnesota senator, said that Romney considers Egypt an ally and that the governor couldn’t imagine the current Egyptian government breaking the Camp David Accords. TheDC’s Jamie Weinstein reports:

“Since even before Israel was officially declared a state in 1948, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood has been ardently opposed to Israel’s existence. The organization’s offshoot in the Palestinian territories is the terrorist group Hamas, whose charter not only calls for the destruction of Israel but the for the genocide of Jews. Current Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi was a high ranking leader of the Muslim Brotherhood before he was selected by the group to be the presidential candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Freedom and Justice Party. Since winning the Egyptian presidency earlier this year, Morsi has not called for the Camp David Accords to be annulled. He was, however, recently caught on camera mouthing ‘amen’ when an imam called for the destruction of the Jews. And earlier this month, the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader Mohammed Badie said, ‘The jihad for the recovery of Jerusalem is a duty for all Muslims.’ Nonetheless, Coleman said Gov. Romney has no reason to believe that Egypt would break its peace treaty with Israel. ‘I don’t think the governor at this point has any reason to anticipate that they would not [keep the treaty],’ Coleman said.”

Nah, the geniuses in charge of Egypt wouldn’t do something crazy and irrational.

“What if, with just two weeks to go until the presidential election — and the media obsessively following and deconstructing every number in every poll and every other metric to determine who might win — someone decided to mess with the numbers? … Rigging the polls isn’t an option, but Intrade is more malleable. It may not be as closely watched as the polls, but it’s still a metric that reporters use, and someone with the time, money and inclination could push the numbers one way or the other to try to create a sense of momentum or a sense of failure.”

“So if you don’t know your own mind by now, it’s probably not worth knowing. I think I speak on behalf of Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Gary Johnson when I say, nobody really gives a toss what you think. They are using you, but have utter contempt for you. So on Election Day, stay home and observe your normal routines. Look for change under your sofa cushions so you can go to the Stop’n’Shop and buy yourself lots of fatty foods and scratch-off lotto tickets. Watch your Honey Boo Boo reruns. Sit on the can, and sound out the words in the Sports section. But do your country a service, and don’t vote. You’re unqualified to be a good citizen, so why keep pretending?”

To see more of Labash’s advice, which doubles as evidence he isn’t dead, read the whole column.

“The president kept speaking, liberating himself of the secrets he had been hiding all his life. ‘Lizard people are all around us. The Church of Scientology? Entirely composed of lizard people. The Nobel Prize Committee? All lizard people. George Soros is also a lizard person. Jamie Dimon of Chase? Lizard. As are Noam Chomsky, Keith Olbermann, and, obviously, Mick Jagger. The list goes on and on. And all of them have their hopes pinned on me.’ Rahm was in the corner now, mimicking shooting himself in the head.”